Call Back Yesterday
by Mara Greengrass
Summary: “You left and you came back months later and we're all supposed to act like EVERYTHING'S NORMAL!”


TITLE: Call Back Yesterday SUMMARY: "You left and you came back months later and we're all supposed to act like EVERYTHING'S NORMAL"  
DISCLAIMER: These characters belong to the BBC. I just fantasize about them.  
CONTINUITY/SPOILERS: Spoilers up to "End of Days" and goes AU (presumably) after that. This takes place in the same universe as my other stories, I suppose, but isn't specifically connected at the moment.

* * *

Jack stood behind Tosh's chair and scowled at her.

Her head didn't lift from the computer screen filled with equations beyond even his comprehension. "Did you want something, Jack?"

"To talk."

"We don't have anything to talk about," she said, "and I have work to do." Fingers flashed on the keyboard, but Jack was pretty certain she'd just typed rubbish.

"Uh-huh." Jack leaned against the nearest support beam, hands tucked in his pockets.

Tosh took her hands off the keyboard and her head came up. "Nothing to talk about, Jack. You left and you came back months later and we're all supposed to act like EVERYTHING'S NORMAL!"

Silence reigned in the Hub for a few long moments as everyone froze in place, reacting to the incredibly unusual sound of Tosh shouting.

"Right then," Jack said, eyebrows flicking up as he grabbed her arm and pulled her away from her station, "we're going for a drink."

"I don't want a drink," she protested as he grabbed her coat and shoved it into her arms.

"We'll be back in a bit," he hollered to everyone else.

"But Jack, I--"

"I said," Jack glared at her, "we're going for a drink because we need to talk. And I'm the boss. Thank you, Ianto," he said as the Welshman appeared out of nowhere to hand him his coat.

Tosh still looked rebellious, but she stopped arguing.

Nobody met their eyes as they strode out.

Jack decided she'd follow for now and he let go of her arm. "I was going to suggest coffee, but somehow I think you need alcohol more than you need caffeine."

Tosh didn't say anything, shrugging on her coat and shoving her hands in her pockets.

"Okay, then, I'll do all the talking. I remember one time when I was on assignment in Scotland, I was supposed to work with these twins. And they couldn't think their way out of a wet paper bag, but let me tell you, when I got them in bed, they really knew what they were doing."

Tosh didn't look at him, huddling in her coat against the damp chill of Cardiff in the fall as they strode toward The Jug & Platter.

By the time he'd settled her into a corner booth at the pub, Jack had moved on to a story about an alien he'd met on Anuria V, which he told Tosh was Berlin.

Weaving through the late afternoon tourist crowd, he came back with her Guinness and his soda water just in time to deliver a punch line he knew she didn't hear and wouldn't remember.

"And there she was, two mouths attached to this guy's nether regions and she looks up at me and says, 'But I thought he was legal size!'"

Tosh stared over his shoulder with an expression that clearly said, 'I've met sheep more interesting than you.'

"What did you want to talk about?" Jack asked, sipping his water.

Her eyes finally focused on him with a look of utter incredulity. "I di--"

"You shouted at me in the middle of the Hub. I'd say you've got some issues with me. C'mon," he wiggled his fingers, "out with them."

"Just like that." She put her hands around the glass as if it was a life raft.

"Just like that." Leaning his arms on the table, he waited, listening with half an ear to the news playing on the television behind the bar.

"You are such a piece of work. I can't believe you."

Okay, we're getting closer, he thought, sitting still and waiting for the explosion.

"You...you die, you come back, and you disappear. Then you reappear and we're supposed to pick up where we left off?"

"Isn't that what we do?" His bittersweet smile wasn't entirely for her.

"Well, I can't do it, Jack." Tosh took an unsteady breath and a gulp from her glass. "You were right about the Rift and we were wrong. We betrayed you. Is that why you left?"

Jack shook his head slowly, trying to remember how to breathe. "No. My reasons for leaving were very personal. Old business."

"Is that old business complete or do you plan on leaving us in a lurch again?" She was bouncing like a ping pong ball from anger to guilt.

"I won't leave without warning again."

"But you might leave." She stared into his eyes.

Jack didn't answer, remembering his first moments alone with Ianto after leaving the Doctor. Tosh might be mad, but Ianto...

"Jack!" Tosh waved a hand in front of his face. "You're the one who wanted to have this conversation, you know."

He focused on her. "Tosh, I'm sorry I left so abruptly."

"You've said that. Several times."

"And I get the feeling you don't believe me." Jack figured a blind and deaf man could have figured that out. Tosh wasn't particularly subtle.

She stared into her glass. "Jack, I...after we went to the Ritz, I thought maybe I had you figured out a little bit. But now I wonder if anything you've ever said to me was the truth."

"It was." Jack closed his eyes for an instant. "Please believe me, what I told you then was the truth." He wasn't sure why that was so important, but it was.

She looked up. "Is this all just a big con, Jack?"

"What?" Stunned, he sat back in the booth, bumping his head against the seat.

Tosh's frown looked suspicious. "You said you were a con man. Are you just using us to find something? Or do something?"

"I..." Jack found himself at a loss for words. "No. I...it was a long time ago."

"In a galaxy far far away," she said with pardonable sarcasm.

He couldn't help it: He laughed. "No, not far away at all."

"I'm glad you think this is amusing."

"No, Tosh, I know it's not." He sobered quickly. "And all this--Torchwood, the four of you, everything--it's not a con. I've been done with that for a long time."

"Really." She sounded remarkably unconvinced.

"Yes, really."

"But you're still full of secrets and you expect us to trust you." Tosh leaned back in her seat and sighed. "I don't know if I can still do that." She shook her head.

"I trust you," he said, "and as you pointed out, you're the ones who turned on me."

She gave him an indecipherable look. "About that."

"Yes?" He took a sip of water, beginning to wish he'd gone for something harder. Like a brick to the head.

"Just before Owen shot you," Tosh's mouth twisted, "you made certain comments about each of us."

His stomach rolled, remembering what he'd said, how at that moment he wanted nothing more than to hurt each of them as badly as possible. "I'm sorry, Tosh, I--"

"No." She waved a hand. "You're not sorry, really. You were angry for a reason. But that's not my point. What you said, you called me 'The poor girl who'll screw any passing alien that gives her a pendant.'"

Jack couldn't look at her, so he stared down at the sticky table instead. Part of his brain noted with some interest that apparently he did still have a sense of shame. Useful to know.

"What you said to the others...well, I've talked to each of them, and you described the person they saw, the person they'd lost, the temptation Bilis used to turn them."

Jack looked up, confused. "I know. I thought--"

"You thought I'd seen Mary, didn't you?" Tosh took another drink, then looked him in the eyes. "I saw my mother, Jack. I didn't see Mary, I didn't even think of Mary."

"Oh."

"Did you even know that my mother is dead?"

Jack took a deep breath. "I can't remember."

"Of course not." Tosh snorted. "Ianto is right. When was the last time you asked about any of us?"

Jack sighed, unsure how to explain or what to tell her. "Tosh..."

She sat very still, waiting, not helping him in the least.

"The reason I stopped being a con man, well, there were these two people, a man and a woman."

"If this is another story about sex, Jack, I'm leaving."

"No." He huffed out a laugh. "It wasn't like that. But I did love them and they're both gone now." He thought of the new Doctor, still a good man, still worth loving, but not the man he'd loved and followed to hell.

"Dead?"

"Not exactly. But I'll never see them again. I cared too much, knew too much." He took a long drink of water, definitely regretting the lack of alcohol. "You saw that I made the same mistake with Captain Jack. I can't..." He closed his mouth.

Tosh's expression softened. "What about Ianto?" she asked softly, barely audible above the pub's noise.

"That's between Ianto and me," he said, his voice rough.

Nodding slowly, Tosh sipped her drink. "But after everything, surely you can see that we can't go on like this. What happens the next time we need to trust you? What else are you hiding, Jack?"

He tapped his fingers on the table a few times, throttling back his emotions after her previous line of questions. "It's complicated."

"You can't tell us where you were." It wasn't a question.

"No." He met her eyes. "If I did, you'd all be in danger."

"More danger than we're in every day?"

"Yes." He willed her to believe him, because it was the truth.

Slowly, she nodded. "Okay. But that still leaves us with the problem of you trying to stay apart. You can't do that. Not in a group like this."

"You think things will get better if I ask about your family?" Jack scowled. Tosh scowled right back at him, and that made him smile. "Fine. Fine. I'll try to, oh, I don't know, ask about your grandfather."

Tosh rolled her eyes. "Just try, Jack, that's all I'm asking."

"If you try to trust me." Jack held out his hand.

Tosh hesitated for a moment before putting her hand in his. "I'll try."

"So, how is your grandfather?"

"Oh, he's still wound up that I missed his birthday party." Tosh took her hand back and drained the last of her drink.

Jack winced. "Right. I forgot about that."

"I thought so." Tosh sighed heavily. "Let's go back to the Hub before Ianto and Owen kill each other."

"Good plan." Jack helped her on with her coat. "Have I told you about the time I--"

"Jack!"

He slung an arm around her shoulder and steered her through the pub. "Joking. Just joking."

"I hate you, Jack Harkness."

"I do my best."

--end--


End file.
